I was sitting in an elders’ meeting recently listening to two counselors, also elders, share about caring for our people. They said, “The vast majority of peoples’ needs can be met by someone who cares.”

In other words, people that we may think need a counselor simply need to be in a caring community. They called this “soul care” and they described it this way using the acrostic LOVE.

L- Love

Go to where they are.

Are you curious about where those feelings come from?

Feelings reveal reality. Explore feelings.

Feelings are driven by perspective. Perspective is driven by beliefs.

O- Offer yourself

It’s easy to identify people by sin. But the New Testament refers to people as saints.

Requires vulnerability on our part.

Helping self-disclosure is healthy.

V- Validate

Most of us want to vindicate.

We need to be about valuing others.

People need to feel safe.

Asking questions. “Tell me more about…”

Do we want to fix them more than we want to know them?

E- Encourage

When we know the good, the bad and the ugly and still love them, that’s very encouraging to them.